In the case of Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC the SCOTUS Justices rendered a blunt 9-0 ruling that the Obama Regime does not have the right or privilege to tell a religious institution who may or may not be in their clergy nor under what terms they onboard or offboard such ministers and/or priests, overruling and reversing the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals’ early decision.

The interest of society in the enforcement of employment discrimination statutes is undoubtedly important. But so too is the interest of religious groups in choosing who will preach their beliefs, teach their faith, and carry out their mission. When a minister who has been fired sues her church alleging that her termination was discriminatory, the First Amendment has struck the balance for us. The church must be free to choose those who will guide it on its way.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed.

It is so ordered.

– Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr.
Writing for the Court

So, for now, the shades of the Founding Fathers are smiling. The Supreme Court unanimously slapped down the Obama Regime’s attempt to violate the 1st Amendment and Americans’ freedom of religion.

Worse for Obama and his handlers, his hand puppet Justice Elena Kagan has been forced to recuse herself due to her having been involved in the administration’s initial legal opposition to the law as Obama’s solicitor general.

Given that the SCOTUS is also currently hearing the Obama Regime’s continued appeals against Arizona’s 2007 Legal Arizona Workers Act and is expected to uphold a lower court’s ruling in favor of Arizona, things are not looking well for Obama, his handlers, and the illegal immigrants whose legal relatives they’re pandering to.

Sometimes To Save The Body Diseased Parts Must Be Excised

The prognosis for Obama’s “signature achievement” is fairly grim. Worse for him and his Liberals, the SCOTUS are not often surgically precise and the gavel is a hammer, not a scalpel.

Given the current poor health of Obamacare and Obama’s presidency in general, one has to begin to wonder if Obama has filed a DNR notice – Do Not Reelect.

It has been dubbed the “Business Death Penalty” because it allows Arizona to shutdown businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

Specifically it allows Arizona to suspend the business license of any company that knowingly hires illegal immigrants for a minimum of 10 days upon the first offense and permanently upon the second or later offense. It also mandates that companies must use the federal governments E-Verify system to validate hirees’ employment eligibility.

This is the true beginning of immigration reform – real immigration reform – because it strikes at the festering core of illegal immigration by punishing those within America who enable, aid, abet, and profit off of these criminal foreign invaders.

Justice Samuel Alito was the lone though very passionate dissenter, as was to be expected.

In a nutshell the SCOTUS’ ruling once again confirmed that unpopular speech and/or expression – Phelps’ brood’s rantings are about as unpopular as it gets – is protected by the 1st Amendment of America’s constitution. They further, by their ruling, in effect reiterated that people cannot use tort law to circumvent the constitutional limitations upon criminal law.

We, the People cannot allow the government at any level to enact laws that curtail freedom of speech by the People, nor can we allow judges to use lawsuits and punitive damages to do the same. Allowing such would lead to greater lasting harm than anything that the Westboro traitors could achieve on their own.

As much as allowing Phelps’ brood of traitors to continue their attacks upon America’s military and military dependents sickens and outrage me, the SCOTUS arrived at the only right decision.

If Americans want to solve for the problem of Westboro Baptist Church and the Phelps brood, then we’re going to have to do it in an extra-judicial manner.  Preferably this should be done in a manner that sends a clear message to any other domestic enemies that would attack our troops and their families in this or any other manner.

Sadly, I don’t think we have the courage and conviction anymore to do this as it would need to be done; we’re too squeamish to enact a pogrom of rape, mutilation, and murder against them with an emphasis on targeting their women, children, and grandchildren, and we’re far too cowardly to sacrifice ourselves up to the law when finished.

So Westboro won 8-1 in the SCOTUS and will continue to win the privilege of attacking our troops and their dependents because we, the People won’t put aside our sensitivities and do what is necessary to put a stop to their atrocities.

Legally this was the right call and decision.

It’s also, however, a decision that has scared and angered a number of people, for variety of knee-jerk, self-serving, and some valid reasons respectively, since the shifts in technology have lured many people into storing vast amounts of private information within their mobile devices.

We granted review in this case to decide whether the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution permits law enforcement officers, approximately 90 minutes after lawfully arresting a suspect and transporting him to a detention facility, to conduct a warrantless search of the text message folder of a cell phone they take from his person after the arrest. We hold that, under the United States Supreme Court’s binding precedent, such a search is valid as being incident to a lawful custodial arrest. We affirm the Court of Appeal’s judgment.

– Supreme Court of California
The People v. Gregory Diaz (S166600)

The police have the legal right, as affirmed multiple times by the SCOTUS, to search anything on the person of- or in the immediate control of anyone that they arrest without the requirement of obtaining any form of warrant to do so. Any evidence found during such searches is admissible in court and is not limited to such as is pertinent to the charges that the arrestee was originally detained for.

The previous SCOTUS opinions on: Harris v. United States (1947), United States v. Rabinowitz (1950), and Chimel v. California (1969) even extend this right of search and seizure to the room in which the suspect is arrested within – Chimel being a limiting factor since the Court held that the seizure of the entire contents of a house and its removal to FBI offices 200 miles away for examination, pursuant to an arrest under warrant of one of the persons found in the house, was unreasonable.

None of this is new; this is settled law. What is new is the amount of type of data that people carry on their persons and which is therefor subject to warrantless search in the event of their arrest.

General Petraeus’ concerns seem to be over the probable additional risks to our troops stationed in the Muslim World the burning of the Qur’ans by the Gainesville, FL church would cause.

It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort. It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems. Not just here, but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community.

Firstly, let me say the General Petraeus is quite accurate in his claims that Muslims will respond violently to the burning of Qur’an and that such a violent response would explicitly increase the dangers faced by our soldiery stationed within the Muslim World, especially those serving and fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Stimulus: Burning A Qur’an

Response: Muslims Riot And Go On Violent Rampage

It’s simply a proven fact that a great number of Muslims respond to being  offended by either targeted or mass acts of violence.  Their responses to insulting cartoons of their Prophet proved that point to the world. Therefor it’s hard to blame Gen. Petraeus for being against such a public burning of Qur’an. It will, without a doubt, make his job and the jobs of the troops he commands that much harder and that much more dangerous. Simple.

But this whole situation is more complex than that and, along with risks, it also calls to my mind SCOTUS Justice William O. Douglas’ opinion upon the case of Terminiello v. City of Chicago (1949).

Accordingly a function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it presses for acceptance of an idea. That is why freedom of speech, though not absolute, is nevertheless protected against censorship or punishment, unless shown likely to produce a clear and present danger of a serious substantive evil that rises far above public inconvenience, annoyance, or unrest. There is no room under our Constitution for a more restrictive view. For the alternative would lead to standardization of ideas either by legislatures, courts, or dominant political or community groups.

Terminiello v. City of Chicago is quite applicable to this situation. Father Arthur Terminiello, a suspended Catholic priest, racist, and anti-Semite, sparked a violence in Chicago when his vitriolic speech at a rally resulted in a riot by 1000+ people outside the auditorium.

I’m also reminded of the oath that then-Cadet Petraeus swore in 1974 when he as a graduate of West Point accepted a commission in United States Army.

I, David Howell Petraeus, having been appointed an officer in the Army of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of 2nd Lieutenant do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God.

I can and do certainly sympathize with Gen. Petraeus’ feelings and I appreciate the horrible situation that he is currently in and how Jones’ planned burning of 200 Qur’ans would just make it worse. I’m not, however, completely sanguine about a 4-Star General publicly speaking in an official capacity – therefor under at least the appearance of the Color of Authority – against a small group of American civilians exercising their constitutionally guaranteed rights of speech, expression, association, and religion.

How is that supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States as he once swore an oath to his God to do without reservation?

Frankly, I see little or no use for Dove World Church’s book burning whatsoever but I’m more worried about Gen. Petraeus’ and the Obama Regime’s responses to it than those of the Muslims. That’s because I’m worried about our government and military saying that we should censor ourselves because we might offend someone, Muslims in this case, and I’m even more worried about them wishing to censor Americans because they fear the likely violent response of those offended Muslims.

Misdirection after misdirection, re-branding of terms after re-branding of terms, half-truth after half-truth – and outright lie after outright lie were the orders of business for President Obama and his Socialist myrmidons in getting ObamaCare through – though never actually passed by – Congress.

And the lies and/or Newspeak just come drooling out of jabbering maws the soldiers of Obama’s Regime, namely the thugs in the Justice Department who report to Obama’s boy, Attorney General  Eric Holder.

First Obama and his Liberals claimed that the Individual Mandate included in ObamaCare wasn’t a tax; now, faced with court challenges by over 20 states and several private organizations and being worried that SCOTUS would rightly rule that forcing Americans to purchase health insurance was unconstitutional, they’re defending their position as being an exercise of the federal government’s “power to lay and collect taxes.”

Shockingly, this is even being reported by the New York Times:

When Congress required most Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty, Democrats denied that they were creating a new tax. But in court, the Obama administration and its allies now defend the requirement as an exercise of the government’s “power to lay and collect taxes.” And that power, they say, is even more sweeping than the federal power to regulate interstate commerce.

Administration officials say the tax argument is a linchpin of their legal case in defense of the health care overhaul and its individual mandate, now being challenged in court by more than 20 states and several private organizations.

Under the legislation signed by President Obama in March, most Americans will have to maintain “minimum essential coverage” starting in 2014. Many people will be eligible for federal subsidies to help them pay premiums.

In a brief defending the law, the Justice Department says the requirement for people to carry insurance or pay the penalty is “a valid exercise” of Congress’s power to impose taxes.

Congress can use its taxing power “even for purposes that would exceed its powers under other provisions” of the Constitution, the department said. For more than a century, it added, the Supreme Court has held that Congress can tax activities that it could not reach by using its power to regulate commerce.

While Congress was working on the health care legislation, Mr. Obama refused to accept the argument that a mandate to buy insurance, enforced by financial penalties, was equivalent to a tax.

“For us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase,” the president said last September, in a spirited exchange with George Stephanopoulos on the ABC News program “This Week.”

When Mr. Stephanopoulos said the penalty appeared to fit the dictionary definition of a tax, Mr. Obama replied, “I absolutely reject that notion.”

Obviously President Obama has a lot of bellyfeel that the SCOTUS’s potential scuttling of his planned government takeover of the health insurance industry is ungood because it interferes with his doublethink regarding the individual mandate in ObamaCare being a tax or not.

~*~

Keep your eyes open. Travel light but load heavy, and always put another round in the enemy after they’re down.

That sort of censorship was true then in 1972, and it remained largely true throughout the intervening years, but it looks like it has now changed, possibly dramatically.

On Tuesday, July 13, 2010 a federal appellate court threw out the FCC’s rules on indecent speech. This is a big win for broadcasters that could lead to a new Supreme Court test of the government’s power to control what is said on television and radio. For now, the court’s ruling will likely end the commission’s campaign to keep the airwaves clean of even spontaneous vulgarisms with the threat of punitively large fines.

From the Wall Street Journal:

A federal appeals court threw out the FCC’s rules on indecent speech Tuesday, in a big win for broadcasters that could lead to a new Supreme Court test of the government’s power to control what is said on television and radio.

A three-judge panel of the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said the Federal Communications Commission’s indecency policies violate the First Amendment and are “unconstitutionally vague, creating a chilling effect that goes far beyond the fleeting expletives at issue here.”

The decision doesn’t mean broadcast TV and radio shows will now be littered with profanity, because advertisers and viewers would likely complain. But the ruling will likely end, for now, the commission’s campaign to cleanse the airwaves of even spontaneous vulgarisms with the threat of hefty fines.

“I think the notion that broadcasters are going to be dropping f-bombs in prime time is ludicrous,” said Dennis Wharton, a spokesman for the National Association of Broadcasters. “If we wanted to do that we could do that from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.,” when FCC indecency standards don’t apply.

Ashby Jones and Joe White discuss the ruling by a federal appeals court that struck down the FCC’s indecency policy. The court said the agency’s efforts to punish broadcasters for allowing “fleeting” expletives was “unconstitutionally vague.”

The judges found that the agency’s decision to sanction broadcasters’ airing of one-time or “fleeting” expletives is unconstitutional, and suggested the FCC’s broader indecency enforcement efforts are unconstitutional as well.

Fox along with other broadcasters sued the FCC in 2006 after the agency said the networks had violated indecency rules when airing “un-bleeped” profanities of celebrities during live televised events and levied heavy fines and penalties against them. Since the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York affirmed the broadcasters’ lawsuit President Obama’s FCC will have to take this the US Supreme Court if they wish to continue continue to police the language used in broadcast media as they have been doing.

It will be very interesting to see if the Obama regime will decide to push this issue to the SCOTUS or allow the appellate court’s ruling to stand unchallenged. The FCC’s policy and belief in its authority over the matter of obscenity and vulgarity on broadcast media is quite longstanding and reached its peak during the “Bush Era,” yet Fox, whom Obama hates and fears, is leading the suit against the FCC. It’s anyone’s guess at this point which way Obama will jump and command his FCC to act.

Plausibly but somewhat oddly to my mind, President Obama’s decision on how to have his FCC respond to the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York’s ruling may hinge upon Janet Jackson’s nipple-bearing wardrobe malfunction in 2004 during the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show.

Janet Jackson’s Nip-Slip During 2004′s Super Bowl XXXVIII

In 2004 the FCC under President Bush fine CBS $550,000 for “Nipplegate,” which provided the viewing public a half-second look at Janet Jackson nipple, nicely adorned with a sunburst nipple shield. On July 21, 2008, the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled in favor of CBS and overturned the FCC’s fine.

The similarity between the cases is irrefutable and the decisions by the two appellate courts was the same. That, as much as politics and personal feelings, may determine whether or not President Obama orders his FCC to take their chances with an appeal to the SCOTUS.

These Democrat Governors really don’t want the White House to address anything regarding immigration, a topic they consider “toxic,” at this juncture. They’d like the President to focus on the economy instead.

President Obama’s legal attack upon Arizona and the American people scares the shit out of them and they’re no longer willing to follow The One in blind and silent lock-step anymore.

As reported by Fox News:

Democratic governors expressed “grave” concerns to White House officials this weekend about the Obama administration’s suit against Arizona’s new immigration law, warning it could cost the party in crucial elections this fall, The New York Times reported late Sunday.

The closed-door meeting took place at the National Governors Association in Boston on Saturday, according to two unnamed governors who spoke to the Times.

“Universally the governors are saying, ‘We’ve got to talk about jobs, and all of a sudden we have immigration going on,’” Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee, a Democrat, was quoted as saying. “It is such a toxic subject, such an important time for Democrats.”

The Arizona law, which is facing a U.S. Justice Department challenge, requires police to question people about their immigration status while enforcing other laws if there’s reason to suspect someone is in the country illegally.

“I might have chosen both a different tack and a different time,” Gov. Bill Ritter Jr. of Colorado, a Democrat, was quoted by the Times as saying. “This is an issue that divides us politically, and I’m hopeful that their strategy doesn’t do that in a way that makes it more difficult for candidates to get elected, particularly in the West.”

Of course it’s sadly typical that these Democrat Governors’ “grave” concerns are over how President Obama’s attack upon Arizona will affect their and other Dems’ election / re-election chances instead of over how such an attack, especially if successful, will negatively impact the safety and security of the men, women, and children of America, or over how it is an attempt to usurp greater authority for the federal government.

Don’t get me wrong though; this isn’t a purely Democrat failing. Placing their own continued employment in political office over the needs of the nation is a common failing of politicians from both parties in America. The Democrats are just a bit more brazen when it comes to speaking of it.